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Highlighter races is an activity I learned during one of the twitter #langchats. I love it! I wish I could remember who to credit for the activity…

Create a word cloud with a word cloud site such as Wordle.net or tagxedo.com. Do a screenprint and paste the cloud picture in a document. You will just need one copy for each pair of students in the version that I use with my students.

The one I use for weather looks like this: (I used tagxedo.com, it is supposed to be a cloud and lightening)

This is a partner activity. Each partner must have a different color highlighter.

Directions to students:

Write your name in your color of highlighter on the handout.

We will be watching a video. The first time you will watch the video and do nothing on the paper. The second time you will highlight words on the paper. Be careful, some words on the paper are not in the video.

This combines listening and reading together in one activity. It is a great activity to use very soon after the students learn the vocabulary. Because the words are in the cloud multiple time, students get a high sense of accomplishment.

Tips for teachers:

The video should be less than 3 minutes for optimal participation by students.

If using *taxegdo.com you must enter any multiple words as one word (Ex: Hace sol = Hacesol) Also, some accents do not show up in the finished image.

If using wordle.net you can use a tilde for phrases (Ex: Hace sol = Hace~sol)

Include words that are not in the video so students do not just highlight everything.

*I use tagxedo because it includes the word multiple times allowing each student opportunities to be successful.

The two partners race to cross out or highlight that term first on the paper. The student that marks the correct term first receives one point. If a student marks the wrong term, he or she loses one point.

Continue until many terms have been crossed out (not necessarily all of them!), then have Partner B pull out his or her sheet and play another round. The winner is the student with the most points at the end of both rounds.

“Word Race” with pictures:

Follow the directions above but instead of saying the words in English, have a slideshow set up to show images of the words.

It was a life saver when I was teaching elementary and creating my own worksheets, flashcards, etc.

It is used to create screenshots and screen recordings. You use the crosshairs to outline what you want to capture on the screen, which is an improvement over the Print Screen key on your keyboard that captures everything.

Once capturing what you wish to save on your screen, mark up your screenshot with a text box, arrow, highlight or picture caption.

You can choose to save the image/video or simply copy it for quick use.

Some of our Special Education teachers are using Jing to record them teaching new material. The program records the Power Point and their voice for students who need to review later or students who are absent. You are limited to a 5 minute recording for the free version of Jing.

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A new site that I am just beginning to use is Voice Thread. It is a site that we have begun using to collaborate with a classroom in Maryland. I see immediately that it can be used for speaking practice and assessment purposes. Our students have uploaded pictures of themselves and recorded themselves speaking just by clicking on the “Comment” button under their picture. Once their Voice Thread is finished, other students can listen to it and make comments back. The comments can be made with a microphone or students can just type in a response. There are even options for phoning in a response, uploading a prerecorded comment, or using a web cam to make a response. I am excited to find out what other uses Voice Thread has.

There are World Language teachers using Voice Thread for speaking practice in the form of dubbing. The teacher uploads a short video on the current unit, students use Audacity or another recording program to record themselves making a conversation to go with the clip. When finished, they upload it as a comment. It works best if the video has no words. You can do a search on You Tube. The Vancouver Film School channel has lots of them! I hope to give this a try before the end of the school year.

We use You Tube frequently in World Languages, it is a great resource!

Before sharing, I would like to stress that you save your videos in playlists. Also, use descriptive names for your playlists so you can find the videos you want again easily.

I ALWAYS use You Tube videos for reflexive verbs. Once the students have individual flashcards made, we watch “Morning routine” and “Bedtime routine” videos. They put their flashcards in order of what they see. **Watch the videos ahead of time and pick your favorites (short & vocab packed).

Right now we are learning the “Qué Llueva” song by projecting the video with lyrics and singing it. It is “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring” in Spanish.

Another type of You Tube videos that was discussed during Twitter #langchat for class use are videos without words. Great for dubbing and speaking practice. This playlist was given during our chat: Animations sans Mots

The Vancouver Film School channel has some great short videos that you can use for dubbing as well. Make sure you are in the “Videos” tab, then click on Playlists. Just turn down the sound… I heard this through #langchat, too. It’s like online PD! 🙂

To have students dub, I use Voice Thread. This is quite a project but it can easily be done. Upload a video to Voice Thread. Maybe one with no words, or one with cultural aspects. The students will prepare their script. They use a voice recorder like “Sound Recorder” (in Accessories portion of Programs menu), Audacity, Garage Band, etc. to record their work as they are watching the video. The timing takes a little practice and you need to reassure them that it will not be perfect. They upload the audio clip to the video and it is finished. It saves a lot of time if you only have a few videos for them to choose from. It also makes sure they are using a video of a current vocabulary topic.

I have not browsed extensively, but there are some great channels for use in World Language. Here are a couple that I know if. Again, make sure you are in the “Videos” tab, then click on Playlists to see them by category.Spanish TogetherSeñor Jordan

If you have some favorites, I would love to hear about them!

Tube Chop allows you to easily “chop” a portion of a You Tube video. Just use what you need! A great tool for those videos that have good stuff but are just too long.

These are sites where you paste in the URL of the You Tube video you want to download to a flashdrive for later use. Possibly to show in class without the ads or to upload it to a wiki/web page/ Power Point. There is no program to download, just pick a format for your end video: Keep TubeDownload Tube Save Tube Keep Vid

Quiet Tube is a site where you can drag a bookmarklet to your links menu, then for “supported” videos you can click the bookmarklet and eliminate the ads, etc.

Alternatives to You Tube, perhaps because You Tube is blocked in your school or because some of these sites categorize videos:

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I tried EduBlogs. Didn’t stick with it. I think getting on the Twitter bandwagon has shown me how blogs can be very useful. For example, now I know I can come back to this post to remember what video sites I use with the kids….
I believe that I have found most of the technology that I use through social media and social networking sites (are those two different things?).

Right now my students are working on skits/video projects. I give them a choice to perform live or show their video to the class.

Some of the video sites I share with students to edit videos are:

Masher: mix together video clips, music tracks, and photos all for FREE!

Voice Thread: make a collaborative, multimedia slide show that other viewers can comment on.